competitive intelligence and risk analysis

Competitive Intelligence - One of the most powerful aspects of search engine marketing is the intelligence you can gain from it, both about your own brands and your competitors. Just how much can you find out about the competition?

What tools and strategies should you use? Here you'll learn how to gain or retain your competitive edge.

This session featured Patrick Lopez from iCrossing, Tom O'Grady from AdGooRoo, LeeAnn Prescott from Hitwise, Matt Roche from Offermatica and moderation duties were handled by Cam Balzer from DoubleClick Performics, who I interviewed early in the conference.

Overall, this session was a bit light, but it was great to get specific numbers from HitWise, as I would expect, and also both Tom O'Grady and Matt Roche did a great job explaining their products. Matt Roche offered an excellent strategic perspective on online competitive intelligence and he was a standout person on the panel.

Cam gets things rolling by having the panel provide a basic intro.

iCrossing: Uses WebPositionGold for rankings and AdGooro for paid search.

Hitwise: Largest user base of sites monitored.

AdGooro: Keyword and competitive intelligence and trademark monitoring.

Offermatica - Optimize ads in ad networks, text ads, landing pages. Increase engagement and sales for clients. Things to look at: demand going to competitors. Offers made by competitors that you're not. Finding executions that are more compelling.

Cam: Techniques or tools?

Tom: A lot of information is transparent now, increasing the need for competitive intelligence. AdGooRoo measures coverage (share of voice) pre-click and rank. Those are data points to look at.

Cam: How does coverage work in aggregate?

Tom: AdGooroo tracks paid and naturally separately and together. "Coverage" is % of times showing on the first page in paid search results. With natural listings, "coverage" is the number of times the phrase appears in the first 10 pages. With AdGooRoo keywords are added to different groups for monitoring and from that you make adjustments.

LeaAnn: Understanding searcher intent by the sites they visit. Example: "xbox 360″ do consumers go to a retail site or a gaming site? Understanding how much of your own brand traffic is being siphoned off by competitors. Ex: are users going to a Wikipedia entry for your company or to your site?

Cam: What are some ways and sources to mine data?

Patrick: With disparate data resources, it's important to make the information actionable. Identifying strengths and opportunities is important, but it's finding terms that no one is going for that generate the most interest.

Cam: What kinds of data sources?

Patrick: WebPosition Gold and AdGooRoo and also a site review by our search team. Also, see what others are doing well and use that information to your advantage.

Matt: What it comes down to is the ability to use competitive intelligence info and take action on it. Example: a negative consumer review can go live seconds later. A site optimization recommendation can take 3 months to implement.

Cam: What is the other guy spending on search?

LeeAnn: Use Hitwise to identify traffic volume, search terms, traffic sources and then compare to your own site to get a round about idea.

Tom: The most direct way is to go head to head and make some assumptions from that.

Cam: In the US Hitwise doesn't offer a breakout of natural vs paid reporting, but ComScore qSearch does offer reporting of traffic natural vs paid search.

Audience: Are there any synergies with HitWise and AdGooRoo working together?

LeeAnn: Both together would offer a powerful tool. HitWise would provide general numbers.

Tom: AdGooRoo would provide more tactical information for execution.

Audience: What about brand reputation monitoring?

LeeAnn: News sites are beginning to optimize their content. Blogs are starting to get more traffic than mainstream news. For example, the Saddam execution video had more coverage on blogs and traditional news sites.

Cam: Why?

LeeAnn: Blogs and consumer generated media are using the language of most searchers. This gives insight into how people are actually searching for content.

Cam: Should search engines disclose what marketers are spending

Panel: It would be great, but not going to happen.

About the Author

Lee Odden is President and Founder of TopRank Online Marketing, specializing in organic SEO, blog marketing and online public relations. He's been cited as a search marketing expert by publications including U.S. News & World Report and The Economist and has implemented successful search marketing programs with top BtoB companies of all sizes. Odden shares his marketing expertise at Online Marketing Blog offering daily news, interviews and best practices.

The Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) has renewed a Global Market Intelligence Study on large companies; the first study was conducted in 2005 and it is now one of the most comprehensive, if not the most comprehensive, global Market & Competitive Intelligence study based on manual interviews.

http://www.markintell.com/study-large-intelligence/

What even many of the most advanced corporations' lack however, is a process for continuous tracking of strategic issues. This White Paper advocates that a strategic Early Warning / Opportunity system should be integrated with the above mentioned strategic analysis methods in order to monitor, anticipate and affect strategic issues.

Section Overview:

The purpose of this Market Intelligence in Large Companies - Global Study 2007 is to develop a greater understanding of not only how large international companies conduct intelligence activities but also of global intelligence development in general. The aim is also to allow other companies to benchmark their own MI activities in order to understand how to best improve their own MI situation.

The Global Market Intelligence Study was first carried out in 2005 and received much interest.

The aim now is for the study to be carried out once every two years in order to develop a longitudinal

research project on a global scale. What makes the Global Market Intelligence Study unique is that it is a global research project conducted by people from a wide number of countries. Also, the fact it is an interview study distinguishes it from survey-based research; the participants have had the opportunity to discuss and ask questions and consequently we believe that this will make the result richer and provide a more comprehensive picture of the issue in question.

The initial hypothesis was that MI should get an increasing amount of interest due mainly to the following global business trends:

• Increasingly dynamic markets - shorter product life cycles, new entrants, faster development and diffusion of new technology, etc.
• Globalization - creates new business opportunities and threats.
• Need for efficiency in all areas of business - even in information collection and analysis.

Industry Profiles

Automotive

The automotive industry is a forerunner regardingMarket & Competitive Intelligenceactivities. The respondents from this industry indicated a long history and high level ofMarket & Competitive Intelligencepenetration. Sophisticated tools were used

the level of utilization ofMarket & Competitive Intelligencewas high. This results in a high level ofMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity and sophistication. Future investments followed the global trend

Energy

The energy industry has a shortMarket & Competitive Intelligencehistory. This is probably due to protectionism and government monopolies in the past, which has reduced the need for MI. The utilization ofMarket & Competitive Intelligenceand

organization scored around average.Market & Competitive Intelligenceis clearly just coming into the industry.Market & Competitive Intelligenceintensity and sophistication is to increase significantly.

Finance

The Finance industry has an establishedMarket & Competitive Intelligenceactivity and culture. The level of sophistication is, however, below the global average. This results in a moderateMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity. Future development is expected to follow global trends

Healthcare

In this study, healthcare was well below average concerning the penetration ofMarket & Competitive Intelligenceactivities. It also scored below average regarding the number of years in which companies have conductedMarket & Competitive Intelligenceactivities. The sophistication was also below global average. This results in a relative position that is below average regardingMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity. Future development was nevertheless above global average.

ICT

The responses from the ICT industry indicated a relatively short history ofMarket & Competitive Intelligenceactivities with a moderate level of penetration. Utilization ofMarket & Competitive Intelligencewas average and the industry show above average scores regarding sophistication. Future expectedMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity was below average.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing industry scored average history and penetration The replies indicated well organizedMarket & Competitive Intelligenceactivities. Competence development and investments were above the global average. FutureMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity is expected to increase above average.

Mining

The currentMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity is in lines with the global average score. Projected investments (MI in general andMarket & Competitive IntelligenceIT) were below average This results in a moderate future growth regardingMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity.

Retail

The respondents from the retail industry were scoring similar to global averages on most issues. The expectedMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity is however expected to grow significantly.

Service Sector

The sophistication regardingMarket & Competitive Intelligenceactivities were below average. The investments were however above average. This results in aMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity that currently is in parity with the global average. FutureMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity is however expected to grow considerably.

Transport

Replies from the transport industry showed thatMarket & Competitive Intelligencehas not a long history. The activities seemed, nevertheless, to be well organized. The investments inMarket & Competitive Intelligenceare expected to be moderate. This results in a slowMarket & Competitive Intelligenceintensity increase compared to the global average concerning this issue.

The Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) is a global network of business research and Competitive Intelligence (CI) consulting companies. The series of GIA White Papers is a means for the GIA and its clients and partner companies to share knowledge on key topics within the field of Competitive Intelligence. Please feel free to give us feedback on the White Papers by sending email to info@globalintelligence.com.

While the Internet has been embraced as an unparalleled data source for traditional competitive intelligence, few have exploited its full potential for providing strategic competitive insights. In addition to the ready availability of competitive data from discrete Web-based information sources, the Internet makes it possible to directly observe a competitor's broader sales and marketing activities, providing answers to questions such as:

• Where, and in what context, do my competitors have a presence online? What insights does their brand reach provide regarding their target customer and marketing strategies?
• What are my competitors' partnership strategies, and who are their top online partners? How are my competitors leveraging the value of their partnerships to drive sales and gain market share?
• What kind of commentary is available online about my competitors?

What can it tell me about consumer perceptions and product direction?

Today, no sales and marketing plan is complete without a solid understanding of the online activities of competitors. Increasingly, companies augment proprietary, corporate data with insights derived directly from the Internet. This combination of internal and external intelligence provides a more complete perspective of the business landscape and serves as a powerful tool for competitive advantage.

Read full article on

www.kulbiz.com/comp_intelligence/Competitive Intelligence.pdf

By CK Chung (aka Kid Disco).

What if I was to tell you that you could cut the amount of time spent on a certain element of SEO by half and, at the same time, double your production for it. Is that something you might be interested in?

If so... read on, grasshopper.

SEOs will generally kick-off an optimization campaign by examining analytics, performing keyword research, checking on-page elements, analyzing links, and so on and so forth. However, there exists an extremely useful tactic that is often underutilized or left out completely from the SEO's arsenal. What am I talking about? Ladies and gentleman, I present to you... Competitive intelligence.

What is competitive intelligence? As it relates to search marketing, I would define it as the process of performing research to gather information about your competitors' websites and analyzing that data for the purpose of extracting methods used and formulating strategies that you may use to optimize your own website.

Competitive intelligence can open your eyes to many things, including:

• What your competitors are doing.
• How you compare to your competitors.
• Predict what your competitors will be doing.

There are plenty of resources and tools on competitive research and analysis that are readily available for you to utilize. Simple searches on the SEM Search tool for competitive intelligence, competitive research, and competitive analysis will return a barrage of blog posts and articles that will lead you to a slew of more resources and tools you may incorporate.

These tools and tactics that you will find will lead you well on your way to gathering useful data on your competitors. Being the swell guy that I am, I'll present you with two of my favorite tactics...

View the source

Often times, you will find that your competitors will leave a bunch of clues and/or trails in the source code of their pages. Some of the things you may find include:

• What keywords they are targeting (meta name="keywords")
• What kind of content management system they are using, if they are using one.
• What analytics package they are using, if they are using one.
• What other third-party companies your competitor is using.

You may use this knowledge to exploit your competitor's weaknesses, implement these practices on your own site, and/or obtain additional information through further research... if you know what I mean.

Another item in the source you should look for are comments. Many web developers and designers will leave notes in comments like this:

You should also look for entire elements or blocks of code that may be commented out. These may reveal such things as new elements that may soon be introduced to the site and/or items that are being tested on the site.

Competitive Link Analysis

And now we get to the answer to the initial question: How can you spend half the time on a certain element of SEO and get twice as much out of it?

The element I'm talking about is inbound links. Everybody knows the importance of inbound links in an SEO campaign. Why not use your competitors to help you out? You can easily analyze the backlinks of your competitors.

There... there's half the work of researching for potential link acquisition targets all done for you.

Now all you need to do is implement the usual link building strategies to acquire backlinks from the same sites that are linking to your competitors... right?

Well... you could, and I'm sure many of you are doing this.

But, I have more. Using those usual link building strategies, what if you were to get the website that is linking to your competitor to change that link to go to your site, instead?

Then, instead of your competitor having 1 backlink to your 1 new backlink, now your competitor has 0 and you have 1.

Bang! Double your productivity. Not only are you gaining links... you're competitors are losing them!

Of course, you will want to avoid anything that may cause the search engines to become suspicious... and I'll speculate that your competitor's backlinks being replaced by yours across hundreds of sites may do just that.

So, you obviously should be replacing not just one, but many other competitors' links.

In addition, keep in mind that this strategy should be just a part of your link building campaign, as it is best to keep your link profile diverse.

Summary

So, there you have it folks - competitive intelligence and a few tactics in a nutshell. I would really need something larger, like a clamshell, to expand on the subject, but I hope I have provided enough information for you to get started on the right path.

Being aware of competitive intelligence will not only help you gather information on your competitors to use to your advantage, but it will also make you aware of what you should and shouldn't be doing on your own web properties so that your competitors can't gather the same type of information about your websites.

Of course there are more sneaky tactics you may use with competitive intelligence, but we can't go into those here.

CK Chung is a Holistic SEO Consultant and his alter ego, Kid Disco, keeps up an SEO blog covering the lighter aspects of search marketing.

Business intelligence, corporate intelligence, manufacturing intelligence, industrial intelligence -- whatever you call it, we do it openly but prefer the target company be unaware. How do we pursue aggressive but legitimate competitive intelligence-collection activities without being liable for espionage?

In April, two former Ferrari engineers accused of stealing trade secrets were convicted of industrial espionage. And earlier this month, five Kia workers were indicted for selling car manufacturing technologies to China. Since last November, the five Kia workers allegedly delivered 57 corporate secrets, including the technology to assemble a certain sport utility vehicle and plans for new models, to a local consulting firm established by some of Kia's former workers.

The National Intelligence Service said among the leaked Kia corporate secrets, files on welding, assembly and quality control were handed over to a Chinese automaker.

It's pretty clear, thanks to the increasingly rapid occurrences of technological disruptions, that support and focus on innovation and invention play a huge role on profitability. Yet given a morass of uncertainty about how much to invest in R&D to generate new products, technologies and services, what do top managers do? They hire someone or outsource someone or some group to gather competitive intelligence (CI) - not corporate or industrial espionage.

The difference? Espionage by definition is using spies to obtain information about the plans and activities especially of a competing company. CI practitioners generally abide by local legal guidelines and ethical business norms. There is a strict code of ethics followed by reputable CI practitioners, laid down by the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), the only global not-for-profit membership organization for everyone involved in the development and use of CI. The SCIP code includes the stipulations that CI professionals:

• Must abide by all applicable laws - whether domestic or international;

Over the last several years, SCIP surveyed its members and, in its "State of the Art: Competitive Intelligence: A Competitive Intelligence Foundation Research Report 2005-2006", revealed that most respondents allocate their limited resources among the various components of the CI cycle (planning, collection, processing, analysis, dissemination), with the majority of their time spent on analysis and secondary data collection. For them:

• Internal employees are the most important primary sources of information; publications and Web sites are the most important secondary sources.

• Competitor analysis and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) are the most frequently used analysis methods.

• E-mail has surpassed hard copy reports, personal delivery, and presentations as the most commonly used method for acquiring and disseminating CI. Competitive intelligence practitioners have many delivery options, and they need to know-how to determine the best method for selecting specific deliverables.

• Many tools and technologies are internally available to help collect information and report intelligence. Almost half of the survey respondents are confident they use the most appropriate technology.

Gathering competitive business intelligence is not so difficult as it may seem, and is far less glamorous than the popular Riley of the "Spies" TV series might lead us to think.

According to the namesake of international CI consulting firm Richard Combs Associates, in Chapter 3 of his "Competitive Intelligence Handbook":

Some 80 to 90 percent of the information a project requires can usually be found through publicly available channels, and the rest often can be deduced or estimated.

Businesses are in a Catch-22. They want to provide as much detail as possible to persuade, with credibility, financial analysts that they are on the right track to improving profits, while not giving so much detail that they tip their hand to competitors. Of course, corporations are going to be freer with near-future plan details than with long-range plans.

For some specifics on where to find public information, a classic Fast Company editorial provides some sources used by experienced intelligence gathers, including the following:

• Conference proceedings;

Additions to this list can include:

• Government sources, (patents, court documents, environmental agency records, local building and zoning records);

Many companies are concerned about keeping their practices above board. One of the ways to ensure CI over espionage is through internal training and providing employees with clear-cut, written policies (such as in an employee manual) regarding what is acceptable practice.

It isn't necessary to use illegal or unethical methods in CI, says SCIP. In fact, doing so is a failure of CI, "because almost everything decision makers need to know about the competitive environment can be discovered using legal, ethical means.

"The information that can't be found with research can be deduced with good analysis, which is just one of the ways CI adds value to an organization."

http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2007/05/business_corporate_manufacturing_industrial_intelligence_versus_espionage.html?t=recent

Have we as customers become more realistic? Or have we just given up? Maybe, after years of talking about excellence in service, brands have finally met our expectations. And some smart companies have found good ways to secure our loyalty. Or maybe we just lowered our standards based on experience. If it wasn't completely ruinous, we are content.

Consumers expect a lot out of brands and companies - we want more than what many are able to give us. For years, the promises kept piling up: we deliver; we're the fastest; we're the best; we do it all; we have something to prove; you name it. And with each escalation the bar was being raised.

At the same time as agencies and creative departments were crafting these wonderful statements, less funds and attention were dedicated to the development of durable products and flawless services. Or, the products and services provided by companies have become so similar in quality that place, promotion and price are all we care about.

I can think of no other differentiator stronger than service, as in customer service - with a license to get things done. It can be really simple. Think what would happen if your reps were cross trained to have conversations with customers about:

- any products they are happy with, yours or someone else's [this is competitive intelligence]

- where they buy products and services and why [this is market intelligence]

- your customers as people [this is relationship intelligence]

"Customers" is a very broad definition; it includes audiences, colleagues, and even your boss. Oh, my. Does that mean that everyone can be in customer conversations? That's exactly what it means. I've already outlined some of the big reasons why; let me give you an example of how that works.

When I first started working at my current company, I began a very simple practice that still amazes me at the results it contributes to my work and the company's bottom line. Every time one of our sales reps calls for anything, I ask them one or two frank questions about their day.

* What are you worried about? Is our competition having us for lunch?

* Where are you focusing your time this week? Why? Is that where the market is developing? Where do you see the season/sales cycle hitting a bump?

* Have you read anything interesting lately? What about that last Bond movie, did you see it?

The point is that you don't have to get personal to be personable. You can still maintain a high level of professionalism and demonstrate interest to learn more. Over time, you see patterns develop from the answers you receive. That is the basis for market insights and a much better grasp of what we need to deliver on.

The point is that the concept of service doesn't need to be isolated to responding reactively when customers call with a complaint. If you use your conversations wisely, you can gain valuable intelligence that can help you beat your competitors and raise the bar in your customers' minds.

The point is that conversation can be a very powerful tool in your service mix. Have you had a customer conversation today?

Valeria Maltoni • Conversation Agent • Philadelphia, PA • ConversationAgent@gmail.com • www.conversationagent.com

• Increasing the win margin against competitors, thus contributing to the company's top-line revenues.
• Finding ways to help reduce the company's costs, primarily through competitor benchmarking.

The most info formative source for tactical intelligence is people working in or monitoring the industry. Building and maintaining a network of such knowledgeable sources is critical to effe ffective tactical intelligence. One of the most signifi ficant benefi fits is that this info formation tends to be specifi fic. In contrast, reading in The New Yo York Times that ABC Electronics is cutting prices on its laptops as part of a new marketing campaign may be merely "nice to know" info formation. However, fi finding out fr from an industry source that ABC is cutting prices on all its laptops to $599 as a fire sale tactic, because their LCD screens deteriorate aft fter six months of regular use, is something ABC's competitor sales teams can actually use.

The challenge is to identify the right internal people and to tap into their info formation just when it is needed. In our experience, the leading practice is to reach out to them regularly and personally.

Using tactical intelligence to inform strategy There are many diffe fferent types of tactical intelligence that can be used to inform strategy. Among them are:

• Win/loss debriefs, both with internal sales teams and client decision-makers; competitor sales tactics, approaches and messaging; competitor product specifi fications; and the extent of competitorrelationships at a client company
• Analysis that supports day-to-day operations of acompany, such as competitive bidding
• Analysis that suggests how to compete more effectively by taking advantage of competitors' problems

Wi Win/loss debriefs and competitor updates used individually may not provide effe ffective info formation for strategic decision making. But taken together, they can help fo form a clearer picture of competitor strategies,market view, and fu future direction. Leadership can then use this kind of strategic CI to help info form its own strategic decisions, which are oft ften then more effe fective because they are set up befo forehand to correctly anticipate competitor responses and market reactions.

In sum, tactical intelligence may not be usefu ful in strategy development one piece at a time, but used in the aggregate it can provide an insightfu ful picture of where competitors and the marketplace seem to be heading.

60 SECOND INTERVIEW with:

1. What can we expect from Text Mining technologies over the next 12 months?

2007 is the year that customer experience managers, who've previously relied on focus groups, structured surveys, and hand coding of customer feedback, finally begin to see the value of text mining. Customer experience management will become an always on, continuously monitored exercise made possible through text mining of customer communications, first for leading customer service-intensive companies, sowing the seeds for a broader adoption in 2008 and beyond.

Data syndicators who've previously been the purveyors of structured content (sales, market share, quantitative feedback) will begin to market and syndicate the results of text mining information (from blogs, forums, open-ended surveys) leading to a broader consumption of text analytics by mainstream marketers, market researchers, and business planners.

Lastly text analytics, like many other software-based solutions, will move dramatically towards the realm of software as a service, as companies not experienced with the technology decide to procure the technology on a hosted, pay-as-you-go basis.

2. Will the technologies converge to include wider contexts such as image, speech and video and how far away are you from this?

For most of our customers today, we first work to prove that text, in its native form, can be mined to produce business value first before moving to speech and other media. Data from emails, chats, customer "verbatims" in call center communications, and surveys can reliably be used to discern customer needs, intentions, and perceptions of quality, and service. The text analytics technologies can do this now, and leading companies are realizing improved marketing spend, spotting and fixing service problems, and more proactive and timely competitive insights. Speech and image processing technologies are showing promise, but are not yet ready for prime time outside of highly specialized, niche markets where there are artificial constraints on the data being input (ie satellite image processing, microbiology, etc.). I don't expect to see the same mainstream adoption of image and speech mining in

2007 as you're going to see with text mining.

3. How much of a priority is "media analytics" for Clarabridge? Are media analytics solutions being designed right now and when will they be available?

It's an area we are watching closely. I think you can expect to see us selectively incorporating speech processing for some of our more advanced customers in a pilot manner before the end of the year, and you can expect us to work to develop image processing solutions for some as well. I am optimistic that in the future these technologies will become a more mainstream part of our business like text analytics is today.

But to be clear - we're seeing a quadrupling of demand for text mining solutions in very mainstream markets this year - in the pharmaceutical, media and entertainment, hospitality, retail, and consumer packaged goods spaces, and we're also seeing Clarabridge become the leading choice for information syndicators who are moving into the business of selling insights from unstructured text. I think text analytics is the space where you're going to see the most growth, customer adoption, and business transformation.

Whether you're looking to develop an effective text mining solution, widen your knowledge of how to get the most out of your corporate information or to find out how this amazing technology can help turn your raw data into profits, the 3rd Annual Text Analytics Summit provides an informative briefing to help you "discover lucrative new text mining markets, hear from the biggest commercial users and analyze the applications that will increase your profits". Get involved!